Random rantings about everything.

Tag Archives: News

What is loyalty? The definition of loyalty is as follows (from dictionary.com):

noun, plural loyalties.

1. the state or quality of being loyal; faithfulness to commitments or obligations.

2. faithful adherence to a sovereign, government, leader, cause, etc.

3. an example or instance of faithfulness, adherence, or the like:

a man with fierce loyalties.

The concept of loyalty is pretty simple to understand. If you are loyal to someone, you dedicate time and energy to be there for that person. You consider things based on the best interest of the person you are loyal to. A person really is only as good as their loyalty.

What inspired this? President Trump’s Twitter, of course. He tweeted out in one of his latest Twitter fits about Republican loyalty, saying “Some Republicans were loyal”. What is that supposed to mean? It means being loyal to the party, of course. This is the big problem here. Politicians do tend to be loyal to the party, on both sides of the aisle. However, should a politician be loyal to a party or the constituents that put them into office?

They need to be loyal to the American people. They need to not just be loyal to the people that voted them in; they need to consider the needs and wants of all of their constituents. They (We) are your bosses. We determine if you get another term in office. We are the ones that you should be concerned with, not your pockets or your party. So when a Republican stands up against a bill, maybe it’s a terrible bill. Maybe they realize that they are going to hurt more of their constituents than the current option. But by doing what’s best for their people is not being disloyal, they are doing their jobs.

The Republican party really had around 7 years to come up with something great. If they worked together for 7 years to create something amazing, this would not be happening right now. They would pass a bill because they wouldn’t be rushing it. This seems like when you are sitting in class and the teacher says “Don’t forget, you have your 10 page report due in 3 weeks” and you ignore it until they remind you “Don’t forget, your paper is due tomorrow”. Sometimes you get lucky and turn in something passable. Other times, you get the dreaded “See me after class”.

Is Obamacare perfect? Not even close, but name some bill that is. In some places, rates have risen and that’s a fact. In some places, they may not get access to some of the best choices as far as insurance plans go. The idea of mandating insurance seems logical, especially if that money goes back into helping to sustain programs like Medicaid and Medicare. The idea that insurance companies need to offer pediatric dental care in addition to medical care is great because not everyone can afford dental insurance for their kids. Not having to pay co-pays for yearly checkups encourages people to go to the doctor because they don’t have to worry about where the money is coming from. As much as there is that is good about the bill, there are a lot of things that could be a lot better. America deserves better. And this bill is not it.

Politicians really need to learn their place and where their loyalties should be. Democrats are not only creating laws and bills for Democrats and the same goes the other way around. There needs to be compromise and there needs to be collaboration. Without either, this country is only going to continue on this path of divisiveness that is only going to break us.

There are very serious questions that we should be asking. As a resident of Massachusetts, I haven’t experienced any negative impacts on my daily life from ACA. I notice that I don’t have co-pays anymore for visits and no, I’m not on a Medicaid program. We pay for our insurance through my husband’s work. Our premiums have not skyrocketed to a point where we can’t afford it. Maybe it is because Massachusetts along with ACA that makes healthcare something that I don’t really have to worry about. But I do have questions that should be answered.

Currently under Obamacare, health insurance companies are required to provide dental insurance to minors. Does this stay with Trump care? This is a question that should be answered because there are families that cannot afford separate dental insurance. I am fortunate enough because we also get dental insurance through my husband’s work but this still makes things easier on us. For instance when my oldest son needed more sealants, we were going to have to pay $200 after our dental insurance. However, that money was paid for by the dental insurance through our health insurance. That extra money matters when you are in that middle class limbo where you don’t get free things or extra tax breaks.

Can we safely assume that birth control is no longer free? There are some people who actually require this for health purposes. If you are going to close down Planned Parenthood which offers affordable options and don’t have plans to make these medications more affordable, then this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

What happens if you lose your job? Instead of a mandate for those who refuse to buy insurance, they are going to to punish people who lapse in insurance. The problem is what happens if you lose your job and you lose your insurance along with it? You have no job so you can’t buy private insurance and they are really going to make it more difficult to get Medicaid. Then when you finally do get a job, you’ll have to pay 30% more for it. This seems like a tax on the less fortunate population.

What about co-pays? Right now you don’t have to pay co-pays for preventative care. This means that you are not going to pay $25 a pop for your physicals which may give some the incentive to actually go. I know I go to my regular checkups more that I don’t have to worry about paying for it. This means a healthier population. I do believe this also counts for pregnancy, saving women at least $200 that they will not have to worry about when it comes time for their hospital stay that will cost in the $10,000s.

These are only a few of the questions that I have about this new plan that no one seems interested in mentioning. There is a big problem with healthcare that no one seems to want to directly address: the costs. I have no heard any plan that says “yes, paying $200 for a pill of Ambien while you are in the hospital is ridiculous”. What about the big mess with insulin meds or the Epi-Pen? Maybe we should mistrust politicians since they don’t want to fix the problem because then they won’t get their payoffs for helping these big companies profit off of the people who can least afford it.

That is really what is missing in the world today: facts. With outrageous “news” organizations like InfoWars, BreitBart, Occupy Democrats, and the many other so-called news organizations out there, people don’t bother with facts. When I read a headline that strikes my interest on any topic, I immediate Google the information and search to see if any other reputable news sites have any information on the topic. If not, I assume it was just a fictitious story that was created for the sole purpose of pandering to their masses or to incite some fake outrage. If I do find that the story is something that is real, I read several different websites (CNN, Fox News, local news websites, etc.) to find out everything about it. I’m smart; I know each of these organizations are going to toss me an angle rather than the whole story, purposely omitting something to twist it to match their own agenda. Then I decide for myself, as a free-thinking individual what is likely the facts because I don’t trust anyone to just tell me what facts are. Everyone has an agenda.

When the whole thing erupted with Hillary, I was skeptical of the timing and wondered if it was more political than facts. Then the facts came out and you think, “well, that was dumb of her” and “how is she able to run for president after doing something that sketchy”. I like facts. Facts proved that she did do something wrong, whether it was in the gray area or fully illegal, she definitely did something wrong.

If you are going to rattle off any type of accusation, you better have proof. You cannot just say something like “Obama wiretapped me, Breitbart said so” and have that be a fact. You can however say, “I was wiretapped, as president I have definitive proof right here”, then show us the results of the wiretapping. Isn’t it as easy as that? Unless there is no wiretapping and he is just trying to divert the attention from the mess that is going on right now. If there are facts, they need to be released to the public so they can actually be outraged and then address how to handle what happened by legal action.

I have a big mistrust for people who just rattle off information for the purpose of outrage without backing it up with anything. Facts are everything and every day, facts are becoming less important to our daily lives. People just follow along like sheep, not caring about those pesky little details other people call “facts” (or alternative facts, as some will point out). The reason this still goes on is because we allow it to. Don’t just follow; educate yourself. Read as much news from the more reputable of websites as possible and please, please do not just read one website and call yourself educated. Opinion pieces are often masked by “reporting the news” rather than straight up facts. That is why it is so important to read everything.

For those people that may live under a rock, or are just in extreme denial, the seemingly impossible happened: Donald Trump is our newest president. I had difficulty sleeping as a result of worrying about the outcome. Not because I like Hillary or even voted for her, but because I was terrified at the prospect of a Trump presidency. And no, I don’t feel as though I wasted my vote on a 3rd party candidate nor do I feel guilty about it considering the outcome. Allow me to explain myself, and do read until the end before you judge me. Also, this is all I have left to say about this election.

First off, here is why I’m afraid: As a mother of a child who is mixed race, I’m worried that hate speech will have an effect on his life. I am afraid that the climate of hate will cause him to be so bullied that he can’t deal with it especially if he never does outgrow his development issues. I worry for my loved ones in the LGBT community and what could happen with a conservative Supreme Court. Will gay marriage be reversed? Will the transgender community never get the freedom everyone else has to be who they really are and live their lives as such? Why do guns have more rights than the body of a woman? These are all things that do worry me.

Then, I have more selfish concerns. I have benefited from Obamacare. I don’t have to pay for a prescription that I actually need to function and may not be able to afford if it gets repealed. Had I given birth before the potential repeal, I would have gotten a free pump and have an easier time paying the hospital bill. Because of Obamacare, I get 2 dental insurances for our children, making their dental care essentially free. Plus, who says rates will even go down if it is repealed? Insurance companies are a business and they do not care about the people. The same applies to all parts of the healthcare world. Now that they know they are able to charge outrageous prices, why reduce them along with the overhead?

After all of this though, I remain hopeful. The turnout for the 3rd party made a statement that people are tired of being held hostage to a two-party system. Even more importantly, I remember that Trump is a businessman and marketed himself to win. Why does this make me hopeful? Maybe he will go back to leaning more liberal on social matters as he had in the past. Maybe he knew that acting like a crazy, misogynistic racist would guarantee him the win and he conned the base into thinking he was one of them. Maybe he lets the states decide, and as someone who lives in Massachusetts, I have nothing to worry about personally. These are all possibilities.

Make no mistake though; Trump didn’t win. Hillary lost. This is an important point. This was not the 3rd party’s fault. This was entirely the fault of the DNC for rigging the primary. The success of the 3rd party was very much a product of the DNC corruption and the polls at the end of the day were proof of that. Today is a day to focus on what’s important. It’s not about gloating that your team won or depressed over your loss. Why? Because the game isn’t over. If the Republican do nothing to better the nation in 2 years, they will ultimately lose at the midterms and may even lose the next presidential election. If they do improve the state of affairs in America for all people, everyone one wins. Plus, checks and balances are there for a reason so there will be no Madison King Aerys to deal with. What we do know for sure is that Trump is a loose cannon and nobody knows what to expect. This all depends on the “experts” that he hires to be his advisors and his cabinet. Just remember this: United we stand; divided we fall. Be kind to each other and respect others, even if you disagree with them.

I haven’t been around in a while. I have been caught up with work, specialists, and parenting and have once again neglected this. Finally, everything seems to have slowed down, in which now I can focus on other tasks on my to-do list, such as finally book editing and a side project I was given to accomplish. My hopes of my book being published this month seems to not be a likely goal, but I’m hopeful if I can just sit down and focus on it long enough without interruptions, I can do this. However, I am a mom of a toddler and a tween so that is all wishful thinking. All I can do is take it one day at a time.

Now, to the real topic at hand: boobs. Well, actually nursing in public. It is a hot topic of debate, especially in my little corner of Western Massachusetts.

I was casually reading my Facebook on Friday, as I had completed all my work and felt that I deserved a day on the couch clearing my DVR. I did clean off most of my DVR, but I also spent way too much time following a series of threads on a page that I liked because it was this amazing place that my toddler loves to play at. I love it, because it’s clean and inexpensive and it is awesome for working on his developmental delays that the specialists work with him on. Apparently they tried to institute a “nurse covered up or in a room” policy, which is illegal in Massachusetts. Okay, we like the law, so 300 comments about how she’s in the wrong and it’s illegal and blah blah, the page takes down the post and changes it to a series of “I didn’t know it was illegal, policy won’t be enacted, please be respectful” posts, to which the owner got equally attacked for.

I sat and read everything that was written. People that had never even been to this small business were giving it 1 star ratings to tank the reviews, which were pretty much all 4 or 5 stars. People posted pictures of themselves nursing, made comments about how formula fed babies should be covered up because it is offensive to see someone be a terrible parent and not nurse their child. People were vicious and cruel and completely out of line. What came out of a “please cover up” post came a torrent of unleashed rage upon anyone who disagreed with them or even said this place was a great place to visit. In fact, even today if someone comments about how it was a great place, someone comments about how it is a terrible place for not welcoming nursing moms. Only to unleash further viciousness upon anyone who dared like this place because it didn’t fit in with their values and views.

I was appalled. I was offended and angry. I was horrified. And it wasn’t the policy that made me feel this way. It was everything that happened afterward that I found so appalling. I think I saw the worst of humanity, the truth in the old adage about how women are the cruelest to one another. It pained me. Every word horrified me and made me wonder what made people so god damn high and mighty that they could belittle people based on their opinions when they are trying to prove a point about how they matter. They do matter, but so do the people that disagree with them. That’s what makes America so great: we are entitled to have our own opinions as long as they match yours.

Do I feel uncomfortable watching a woman nurse in public? Sure, I absolutely do. Does that mean that it shouldn’t be allowed? That’s what I trust our politicians to decide. I didn’t even like it when I was trying to nurse when the lactation consultant watched me. Am I a terrible mom because I couldn’t nurse as a result of my son’s inability to latch on? Absolutely not. Did I pump full-time to provide milk for my son? Yes I did. Does that make me any better than a person who chooses to use formula? Absolutely not, no more than me giving birth naturally makes me any better than someone who used an epidural or a C-section. Nursing or providing breast milk for your child does not make you the best mom in the world, just because. And if you think that, the problem is you. Moms need to stop attacking other moms, because being a mom is the hardest job in the world. As long as your child is nourished with good food, played with, taught lessons, and attended to, you are a good mom. Whether you nurse, bottle feed breast milk, use formula, buy baby food or make it, as long as you make sure your child is provided for that is all that matters. As long as you are there for your child and making sure it grows up with good role models and morals, you are doing it right. As long as your child is succeeding and you are doing everything it takes to allow success, you are a good mom. It’s when you start failing at any of those, that you are no longer a good mom. A drug addict that pawns off their kid all the time on someone else to raise is not a good mom just because she breastfeeds her child.

Then there is this video, from my local news site. I posted it on my Facebook, but I feel it does prove an excellent point here.

Take note of the first mom they keep panning back to outside giving an interview. I was too busy being horrified about the state of that little 8 month old daughter she had in her arms. She discussed about how she wants to empower women in any decision they make and civil rights to nurse wherever they want. Now, for those who do not live in our area, please note that when this interview took place the wind chill was in the negative degrees. Her 8 month old daughter is outside, cheeks red from cold, without protection from the cold.

So does nursing make you a better mother than everyone else? No. Should people be attacked if they prefer to cover up when nursing? Nope. Should a mother be vilified for being unable to nurse or deciding formula is the right decision for their family? Again, I’m going to say no. Should people be vilifying a company that was trying to mistakenly please everyone and put everyone who stands behind the company on some terrorism list? No. Should we start accepting everyone’s differences and opinions because that was what our great country was founded on? I say yes, and no one should ever think they are better than anyone else just because their high horse says so.

It seems that I write more posts about how the media fails the American people more often than I care to mention. It probably is one of my most frequent topics, just because the media’s job is to hold people accountable for things and to keep its people informed of facts. The media fails us constantly. They only people they hold accountable are whatever people they want to hold accountable, and have become propaganda spreading machines. What makes them any different than media in other countries that are controlled by government to spread messages? The difference is we claim “Freedom of Speech”, which in actuality gets sent to the highest bidder because it’s about ratings and sales, not information being properly distributed to keep Americans informed.

Yesterday, there was a shooting at a Boston hospital. Every article I read alternated the ending of the story. All stories agreed that it was a cardiac surgeon that was shot. Some decided that the person was in custody after the shooting, others decided that the shooter had shot himself/herself. Everyone agreed it was a senseless tragedy It was like reading a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story. (Seriously, who didn’t love those?) Eventually, I gave up trying to find out what happened and eventually forgot that I had even cared. Why? Because the media wanted to be the first to get the story out, facts be damned.

This isn’t the first time this had happened, and it won’t be the last. Another more widely known flub is what happened with the ObamaCare supreme court ruling. Remember when they announced that it was unconstitutional? People roared with excitement! People, who immediately shut off their television rather than watch the rest of the breaking news report, went straight to the internet to troll. “Socialism is dead! Long live ‘Merica!!!” “On to further our fight for access to healthcare! We won’t be stopped!!”. Had these people watched their choice of newscast, they would have realized that upon further reading of the decision, their original report had been wrong and in fact it was ruled constitutional. Instead of being concerned with facts, they wanted to be the first to report it. Another memorable moment? When media outlets started circulating pictures of the “Boston Marathon Bombers”, two Arab looking young adults. They were being labelled terrorists, when they were just guilty of being Muslim at a place where a terrorist attack took place. Instead, two boys probably just a tad less white than I were ended up being the culprits while those original people pictured ended up having their lives harmed and potentially risked as a result of the media wanting to be first rather than be accurate or even correct.

To my other point about media propaganda, I bring into evidence an actor that I really enjoy watching. I read the headline “Seth Rogen Compares ‘American Sniper’ to Nazis”. My immediate thought was “Oh Jesus. Another celebrity that put his foot in his mouth. What an idiot.” Conservative media, and other people who follow it blindly, rant on about his un-American statement. (Hilariously, discussing their right to freedom of speech, ignoring his because they don’t agree with him that American Sniper is a nazi propaganda film). One even stating that as a soldier, they had fought for his god given American right, probably not doing enough research to know that it is his god given Canadian right since he is in fact, Canadian. Back to the point. I follow him on Twitter, and I actually read his post. “American Sniper kind of reminds me of the movie that’s showing in the third act of Inglorious Basterds.” I read that over a few more times, and I didn’t understand how that goes into “AMG AMERICAN SNIPER IS NAZI PROPAGANDA!!!” I didn’t understand the outrage. Even his tweets afterward made complete sense. I didn’t understand the controversy here. I still don’t understand the controversy here. So one movie stylistically reminded him of something else? If it weren’t for the “Deflategate” controversy, I would agree with him that this was all just a result of a slow news day.

Which leads me back to the original point. I think I have read pretty much every article about how “Belicheat” struck again. I gathered it was mostly non-news since I had also read just as many articles about how Rodgers likes an over-inflated ball or how some people like to alter the ball so it’s more worn in. I even read an article where a team had heated balls during cold games. After all that, I only got one thing out of it: Any other team would be slapped on the wrist and talked about for one day on the news. Instead, since the Patriots were already caught with their hand in the cookie jar once, they are automatically guilty forever and ever. Some say the balls were taken out during halftime, which was when the Patriots really demolished the Colts. Did it help them win? Probably not, unless a deflated ball makes defensive players see a guy with a ball running towards them and decide to make a path rather than tackle him. Is it cheating? Absolutely and they should be punished for it. Is there one news article that is a reliable source at the moment? Of course not, the news fails at their job and should all be fired for people with actual journalistic integrity because this new form of media fails at what they were supposed to be doing: keeping the masses informed.

It’s a shame that the state of media and politicians are so sad that they have created an equal amount of brainwashed citizens as they have completely apathetic and mistrustful ones. The journalists are supposed to hold all politicians equally accountable for their terribleness, not vary accountability based on whatever channel you watch. Who’s being held accountable for anything if everyone only cares about their own bottom lines? The pundits, the politicians and the so-called journalists are all guilty parties to this.
I constantly talk about this here because it’s true. We should not have to read 6 different articles to figure out one news story. One channel calls Obama the greatest, another says he’s the devil and should be in jail. How about he’s just an incredibly misguided guy that surrounds himself with corrupt fools who then corrupted him. He’s not a devil. He might be a crappy president, but he’s not a terrible human being. And I’m not naïve enough to believe a politician is going to be honest with us. They just want to get elected and sell their beliefs to the highest bidder. Unfortunately for us, we’re not the highest bidder. We’re just the idiots that put them there. Except me, none of the people I’ve ever elected was put in office so I guess I have a clear conscience. Though I usually vote for people based on my agreement on their views, rather than party and my green party candidate didn’t stand a chance. And no, it wasn’t a wasted vote because since this isn’t a true democracy and I live in Massachusetts, the vote would’ve gone to the Democratic party anyways since no Republican president has ever won Massachusetts.
My case in point: Politicians, ignoring the constitution and lying to the American people since 1788. You shouldn’t be shocked by their lying, you should be appalled that no one cares and they get reelected. You should care that the news organizations fight for their own agendas and pockets instead of us, the ones responsible for a portion of their paychecks. Our bosses would fire us for not doing our jobs, why should they get overpaid for theirs?
And for the record, do not confuse this Bergdahl trade as being the biggest controversy with it being the most recent. The NSA thing is more important. The Benghazi thing is more important. This Bergdahl thing is probably the least of my worries in the grand scheme of royal screws ups in recent times. This was just something that was supposed to make people forget the whole VA screw up that blew up in their faces or worked exactly as intended.
Let’s close by admitting our own fault in this. Sitting back and watching awful thing happen is just as guilty as those doing it. Everyone thinks that their political party will be the next coming of Christ to save us and fix all our problems. I’ll let you in on a secret: they’re not. We should vote for people that we believe can do it, even if that means crossing party lines. They are, in general, all the same. Even as a registered Democrat, I cannot think of one Democrat I would want as president. Then again, I can only also think of one Republican I would consider a good candidate and he’s probably too smart to run. The other parties often have decent candidates, but they’d never stand a chance in the general elections. So I plead with you, be the change. Let’s take out putting letters next to the candidate’s name on the ballot box so you force people to make educated decisions. Let’s make sure we are able to pick the right candidate, not the party. We can start our own revolution and fixing our country if the politicians don’t want to.